During high school, I worked in a photo lab. We had the second floor and shared the first with a radio store. Used to go over and loaf in the radio service department in my spare time. When I got old enough to drive, they used to let me make service runs. I would take a caddy of tubes and a tube tester. If I couldn't get it to work I would take out the chassis and bring it back to the shop. After high school I enrolled in the University of Cincinnati Engineering Evening School. Took Electrical since they didn't offer a Radio Engineering Degree. Had a day job wiring controls for The American Laundry Machinery Co. During the Depression people began to wash their own clothes and the laundry machinery business went to pot. I wound up Installing dial systems in the telephone co. for Western Electric. They were replacing their operators with dials. Finally worked my self out of a job. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men.
During the Depression, nobody had any money. S0, that spawned the credit business. My mother worked for a dollar down and a dollar a week furniture store. I became the guy who collected the dollar a week.
I did a brief stint with the Coast G uard Reserves in Gary, IN. Our mission was to protect the steel mills from enemy submarine's. We were successful. The only action we saw was trying to pick up a blonde in the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago.
One thing led to another and I wound up in Hazard running a Finance co. from 1945-1950. Pretty soon after the War, people started to heat their homes with gas and the coal business went to pot. (As did business in Hazard) I wound up in Louisville with five kids.
My son and I went over to see Russ Palmer and got our Novice Ticket. At that time you could get a Conditional License. We went back to Russ and flunked the code. We practiced some more and Russ told us that the FCC Engineer was in town and advised us to go down and take our General. We passed.! My son went off to the Coast Guard Acelectronic supply house and his father fixed TV's in his basement.
I built a Heath kit receiver and transmitter and fooled around with DX. Had an old dipole with one leg thrown over the roof. It got wrapped. around the stack coming out of the commode. It worked pretty well. Worked Barnahl, Russia on it, but it bothered me that it was wrapped around that pipe. So I borrowed a forty foot ladder and climbed up on the roof and unhooked it. It never worked after that, and my son had gone to the academy and I didn't have anybody to climb around on the roof. So, I gave up dx, joined MARS and went into traffic handling. Also worked KYN. The net manager at that time was W4BAZ, J.B. Wathen.
The kids grew up and quieted down, and I felt more comfortable up stairs so I gave up ham radio for a while. When they were young I couldn't stand the din and retreated to my shack in the basement.
My daughter, The one born in Hazard, had gone to Eastern Ky. University, and was a Phys. Ed. major. We decided to do triathlons. I bought a bicycle and while I was still in the white knuckle stage I fell off of it and broke my hip. W4WZU, another frustrated engineer with whom I had worked in the Insurance business for twenty years, gave me a two meter rig to play with while I was mending and I got hooked on Ham radio again.
By that time I had retired and decided to get my Extra. Got some tapes and listened to them until I almost memorized them. Encouraged by W4XT I went over to see Otis and passed it on the second try by the skin of my teeth. Kept my old call until 1995. I had just come back from a bicycle trip to Michigan. I was riding real good when I got too close to the edge and broke my scapula and helmet. The bike wreck wasn't too bad but I picked up a staph infection in the Hospital that about did me in. I used my 2 meter rig in the Jewish Hospital but when they sent me to a skilled nursing facility to pump anti-biotics in me for seven weeks the administrator said I couldn't use it because it might louse up a patient's pacemaker. I used it any way, figuring the worse they could do was to kick me out and they wouldn't do that because of the revenue loss.
While I was in the Frasier Rehab Center I was working the wide area two meter net, when a guy broke in and asked if anybody could handle traffic for New Albany IN. Told him I could; I took the message and the nurse wrote it down as I received it. Some guy had died at sea and they were trying to get word to his old.
skipper. He seemed pleased to get the message
I went down to my daughters in Lexington to recuperate and took my HF rig with me. Was working the low end of twenty. Must have been sending pretty sloppy, when a guy from New York broke in and asked my what class I was. Well, I thought, I will put a stop to that and applied for an Extra type call. (2X2, editor)
My broken hip had deteriorated, and they put in a new one, This one is supposed to last ten years and the IRS says I only have 6.4 years left. If you know of anyone that needs a three year hip, I'll make a deal.
I went hack to Louisville. My wife of fifty years died in 92 and the kids have all grown and their kids have kids and I couldn't maintain the old homestead so I sold it after 40 yrs. I Moved to the 13th floor of a high rise. Thought all I would have to do was hang a wire out the window and I could work the world. Wrong!! (See the WEBSITE article or next NL about the antenna ordeal!)